


A Study of Al's Bar

by SnailArmy



Category: Our Fair City (Podcast)
Genre: Al's Bar, will there be a plotline? will there not? who knows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-05-25 08:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnailArmy/pseuds/SnailArmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Less about the bar, more about the people in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Epsilon 4172W

For as long as any policy can remember, Al’s Bar has been a staple of tunnel-dwelling life. Within the dreary confines on C deck, a policy can lose themselves, find meaningful human connection, or even just have a swig of piping-hot coffee. Although the rowdy clamor and rough patrons can be too much for first-timers, it is a way of life for the regulars, and even more so for policy Epsilon 4172W. This particular policy, more commonly known as Brandy Fischer, has been managing the bar as best she could for longer than most of her customers have been alive. At least, that’s what she likes to tell them. The rumors go that she’s never missed a day of work in her life. Then again, the rumors also say that she murdered a relations technician and still has the bones in her closet. Rumors say a lot of silly things. 

Brandy really has been managing Al’s Bar for a long time. She’s not sure how long. She doesn’t care. In that long time, she has seen a lot of things. She’s seen good policies die, bad policies prosper. One time someone brought a dog into the bar. More importantly, as far as the company’s concerned, she’s worked hard. She never wasted time trying to come up with a more efficient way of doing things. To do so would be to challenge the way things are currently done, which would be to challenge the company. Brandy never challenged the company. Not directly. 

Sometimes, when they had just a few too many drinks in them, just before they blacked out or vomited or left in the arms of a particularly enthusiastic relationship technician, policies would say things they didn’t mean. Or say things they actually meant, for the first time in their lives. Things that disagreed with the company. Brandy heard everything they said. She had never missed a day of work in her life. 

When she first arrived at Al’s bar, working as a waitress, she had been scared to go into the back rooms. Nothing good happens in private, she had been told. Because of the electricity rationing, these subsections were kept unlit. Odd machines were stored there, remnants from the days before. Before what? she sometimes asked herself. She never answered. These machines cast ominous shadows in the dim lights, bringing to mind unwanted images of a past best forgotten. The machines were no longer there, of course. They had been removed and repurposed by the company countless fiscal cycles ago. Brandy never wondered where they went. Come to think of it, she isn’t sure it was Hartlife that took them away. She refused to wonder where they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think four paragraphs isn't long enough to be a chapter, you're not going to enjoy this fic. If you like vague, wandering styles of writing with no real plot, you're going to love it!


	2. Co-Habitation

Brandy’s promotion was nothing special. She used to be able to remember the date. She can’t now. Her mother never knew that it happened- at least, Brandy didn’t tell her. Word gets around in a town like this. It feels like everyone you know knows everyone else, until a stranger shows up and you realize just how isolated, how lonely, you really are. Eventually the stranger stops being strange and becomes just another policy you know, and you settle back into the routine--at least, until it happens again. Brandy can’t remember the last time she saw a stranger. She can’t remember the last time she looked. 

She can, however, remember the first time she filled out a co-habitation form. It was with a policy called Jimmy, who had grown up in the warren across the street. For as long as she can remember the policies around her- her mother, her school friends, the StreetSafe agents she got yelled at for talking to- told her about how they would fall in love someday, in some sort of storybook romance. Brandy believed them. She hung out with him, lived with him, kissed him, all while waiting for that moment of love. It never came. Jimmy- or was his name Timmy?- got relocated, moved to a different floor. Come to think of it, he might have gotten eaten by the woken dead. Lots of people were. Brandy figured that what happened with Tommy was love, because that’s what everyone said it had to be. Maybe that’s why what happened with Rosa was so unexpected. 

Rosa Stevens was the second policy Brandy filled out a co-habitation form with. They met for the first time in the bar, just after Brandy had been promoted to assistant manager. Rosa had taken the wrong peoplemover by accident and came to the bar for directions. Brandy didn’t even catch what she was saying the first three times she said it, so lost was she in the depth of her eyes and the way the low light illuminated her hair from behind, forming a golden halo around her head. Angels were brought briefly to mind, then quickly dismissed. Angels aren’t real. 

But Rosa was, and the two girls quickly developed a friendship, and then a relationship, and then a family. It took Brandy four fiscal cycles to realize that this was what her friends had meant when they talked of love. 

But that was long ago, and nowadays Brandy just laughed when she overheard young policies swooning over someone they had met, or whining about their partner's trivial flaws. She laughed quietly, so that no one else could hear her. Sometimes she laughed so hard she cried. No one else could hear her laughing. Everyone could see her cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with any of this.   
> For corrections, suggestions or advice, comment below. For anything else, use your own judgement.


	3. Raising the Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prologue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry this one took so long, gang, I had a chapter and a half typed out then lost the darn flashdrive. Talk about losing your files. Anyway this was supposed to be about Alison but I didn’t want to do that again so uh here have some moles)

  
Perlite the mole sauntered up to the counter of the bar with a type of smug confidence rare in molefolk. Though the offended stares of the real people slipped off her like a metaphor for something slippery, her brother Sphagnum, trailing behind her, felt them in full force.

  
“Uhm, Perly..” He whispered, after a particularly large lightning rigger sent him a particularly nasty look.

  
“Yes, dear brother?”

  
“I just… do you really think this is a good idea? I mean, we don’t _belong_ here.”

  
“Of course not, but if I’ve learned one thing working in the Hartlife tunnels, it’s that money can get you anywhere.”

  
“But we’re moles! We don’t have money!"

  
“Perhaps not, but I have this.” She turned to face him, digging in the pocket of her moleveralls for a few awkward seconds before pulling out an almost large, uncut gem that was still too dirty to tell the value of. “Once the people see this, they’ll have to let us stay.”

  
“But Perly, that’s just a rock. This isn’t going to work any better than your other schemes, and you know it.”

  
“This one’s different, Gummy!”

  
The younger mole looked into the she-mole’s eyes for a tense moment, then turned back towards the exit. “I don’t think it will ever be, Perly. You need to learn your place.” With that, he scampered off and back to the tunnels, where his dig team was waiting for him. He felt bad for her, he really did, but pity can only get a mole so far. He had to put himself first sometimes.

  
Perlite stood there in shocked silence for what seemed like hours. Her little brother had always been there to back her up, even when she had to drag him with her own claws! Finally, she blinked, once, slowly, and turned back to the counter. The people in the bar had turned from staring to whispering, and the femole could feel the heat rising to her scuff.

  
She put the rock on the counter, and very quietly whispered “One coffee, please.”

  
The man at the bar was not the usual bartender. He was young, and proud, and plain. He picked up this life-changing treasure, looked at it for a moment, and laughed.

  
“We don’t serve moles here. Now scram, before I have to call an exterminator.”

  
Before the man had finished his sentence, Perlite was running for the door, tears in her eyes. Her brother was right- she never should have tried to be more than what she was.

  
Behind the counter, the derisive barista had scornfully tossed Perlite’s rock to the side and went on with his work. He didn’t notice when someone picked it up with thin, pale hands and slipped it into a hand-sewn skirt pocket. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow that's uh.. shorter than i thought so the next chapter'll be up soon. "what does soon mean?" you may be asking yourself. to that i say, "whenever i actually have more than two paragraphs written out, which is to say, who knows"


	4. Role Models

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bad kind.

Though it is illegal, not every policy in the Company works solely for the Hartlife Corporation. There are policies, dear reader, that engage in such egotistical entrepreneurship as to employ themselves, often in direct opposition to the good work done by the Company. While Hartlife supplies all the life you’ll ever need, some policies desire more than their fair share. These policies turn to the underground marketplaces, the seediest underbellies of our beloved tower below. 

While many of these misguided marketers work alone, to reduce their risk of being caught and punished, there are those that work in teams- some of two, some of three, some forming sprawling unlawful organizations. The rock that Perlite found was pilfered by one such pair, consisting of two known criminals- Guy Basile, who first noticed and nicked the gem, and Jeanette Peters, whose pocket carried it home. Though they spent much of their time together, they did not co-habitate, with Guy living alone and Jeanette with a company-assigned partner and child. She had worked at the bar for many fiscal cycles before meeting him, and would for many more after he was caught. He was unproductive, the highest form of crime, and could not hold down a job for more than a few cycles. 

Together, they found, stole and sold anything they could get their hands on, to anyone with enough credits. Nothing was beneath them- they even stole from, and sold to, molepeople. They often met potential buyers in or around the bar. No one looked too closely. Company people turned up their noses at the tunnel dwellers, refusing to become involved in their affairs. The neighbors knew they were only a step away from being in that situation themselves, and were reluctant to close that door. Even with corporately funded programs such as Pitch In by Snitchin’, it seemed that everyone turned a blind eye to these illicit deeds. 

Guy Basile was caught trying to sell food pills to a moleperson, and sent to Data Extraction, where he quickly released everything he knew about his industry. He was never seen nor heard from again. It is unknown who informed the company of his dealings, as they never claimed their Snitch Points. Jeanette Peters left the illegal food trade shortly before Guy was caught, and refused to speak of him again. She still works in Al’s Bar, though under constant supervision. She has since been seen committing only minor crimes, not worthy of Company intervention. 

This is a warning, dear policies. Do not follow in the footsteps of these criminals. Though their life may seem glamorous and full of adventure, only loneliness and death wait for you outside of the loving arms of Hartlife. Remember: the Outside is cold, and full of wolves. If you find yourself with extra resources, report and hand them over to an agent of Human Resources immediately. If you are lacking in resources, then clearly you are consuming too much, and should cut back for the good of you and every employee of Hartlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the least-proofread chapter so far so... yeah, have fun


	5. bonus: the forgotten ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy season 7 everybody! To celebrate, have an extended version of a drabble I did earlier for Smilodonmeow. (As of 9/30/2017, now with extra grammar!)

By now, even he had forgotten what his name was before all this. In a world where your occupation is everything, for him to have taken his as a mantle, twisted it into what he needed it to be- it was sacrilege. The company needed him dead as much as they needed him alive. 

He was a walking paradox. His humanity had reduced him to a title. He had turned it into his name, capitalized it, capitalized upon it. Evan was a man, full of flaws and failures. The Switcher was so much more. The Switcher was a hero, a legend, a god. The Switcher could do no wrong, but Founders, Evan had done so much wrong. 

The lack of sleep was beginning to get to him. Hallucinations, dizziness- when was the last time he drank something? He shook his head, suddenly, violently, and got back to work. Evan had debts to repay. The Switcher could, just maybe, make good on those. 

The ants screamed when they died. It had scared the Switcher half to death the first time he heard it. The next ten thousand times were just as bad. There was something visceral about it that made his skin crawl. It reminded him of something he couldn’t put his finger on- something that he should have heard before, but hadn’t. 

 

Erin had it worse, because she thought she knew how to deal with it. Erin Davenport had heard the tortured, dying screams of hundreds of humans. They always came back to her, lulled her to sleep at night. It wasn’t the worst part of the job. (That was the paperwork.) 

The ants’ screams were different. They struck a nerve, something deep and repressed. Something… maternal. She shuddered, and counted her supplies for the sixty-first time that day. Was it still day? 

She had heard that scream before. 

-

She's wandering the tunnels, no particular destination in mind. The shriek comes from the gutter. The fact that gutters don’t normally scream on their own is enough to pique Erin’s curiosity, so she sneaks a disinterested glance. There's a very, very small human abandoned there- probably newborn, almost certainly unapproved. Not Erin’s problem. It screams again, and she leaves. It won’t be anyone’s problem, soon. 

-

She repeated it to herself. The ants are monsters. They are insects, and insects do not have feelings. No matter how big they are, no matter how loud they scream. They are _not_ human. 

Convincing herself that the ants deserved to die was not the hard part. That came when she had to convince herself that she was any different.


	6. bonus: the survivors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The OFC Fan Meetup inspired me to write Loamy/Caligari. Alas, I cannot write relationships.

“Are you sure this is safe?” 

The normally courageous mole stood timidly, a step behind the ever-fearless Dr. Caligari. 

“Perfectly. Dora knows exactly what she’s doing.”

They were waiting in the living room area of Theodora Thoreau Roosevelt’s cabin in the rapidly-thawing Outside, the naturalist herself busy in the kennels outside. 

“But dogs are so big! And sharp! And what if we get bit-"

“Loamy, darling, I’m a doctor. And I’ll protect you no matter what.” She bent down to smooch Loamy’s snout just as Dora returned, a squealing bundle in her arms. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry, am I interrupting something?” 

Caligari straightened up stiffly, forgetting for a moment that she was in a safe place. In the tower, to fraternize with a moleperson was an egregious mistake- punishable by death, in extreme cases. But that was the tower of the past. Things were better now, and she and Loamy could live happily, and smooch freely, and get a dog, as they were here to do. 

“No, no you’re fine. Is that the beast?”

The bundle wiggled and made some small noises, and if Caligari had motherly instincts this is where they’d kick in. 

“Sure is! Half Emerson, half wolf, and I really do hope that Herbert found the right dwarfism gene. This small pup won’t stay small for long otherwise.” She handed the puppy to Loamy, who cradled it between her arm and her chest as Caligari unwrapped the cloth it was swaddled in. 

The dog was about the size of a human newborn, but hairy like a mole. Caligari fell in love instantly. 

Dora began telling the pair about the important things, diet and grooming and the like, but Emily trusted Loamy to be paying attention to the boring stuff. She had a beautiful wife and child to worry about, and pay attention to, and stare at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fast forward to two weeks later, when their apartment was entirely chewed up and covered in dog pee. Turns out, Hartlife Tower is not the ideal place to raise a dog, even though Herbert’s genetic engineering kept it to a manageable size.


	7. Switchblades

The fancy restaurant in the entertainment district was nothing like Al’s Bar, but Switchblades Cobalt had learned long ago that people are the same no matter how great they think they are. They all want the same things, they all fear the same things. They want something to eat, a place to sleep, and the feeling of safety and protection that the catacomb of the tunnels or the obelisk of the tower provide. They fear change, and people who are stronger than them. 

Cobalt, naturally, was very rarely full or well-rested, and she never felt safe. But she knew how to adapt to change, and her machines made up the difference when her fleshy body failed. She would survive. She did survive, even when the tunnels flooded and the policies rioted and her partner was murdered by Teju Valentine. 

She survived her childhood, her policy having been approved only three weeks before she burst squalling into the world. She was, of course, taken from her parents for their demonstration of irresponsibility and sent to be raised in one of the warrens that M.U.R.D.E.R. had established for just such a purpose. She was trained from childhood to be a lightning rigger, strong and ingenuitive and willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. When the Stormhawk fell and the rigs began to fail, just weeks before Cobalt was to be deployed, she found herself thrown onto the street; another mouth to feed in a time of famine. It wasn’t until power was restored that she decided on her new occupation. It began with stolen scrap metal and bartering a week’s rations for a 9-volt battery, but soon she had earned a name for herself. The newly re-established Science Faire came calling, and the rest, dear policy, is history. 

Be wary of Switchblades Cobalt. She has learned how to fight, how to survive, with or without the company. Her motivations are selfish, and she does not care for the good of Hartlife. She did not mourn for Antimonious Strang, and she will not mourn for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops i think this is the shortest one so far and also the worst


	8. A Special Occasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Thriving is what life does, when left to its own devices”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An accompaniment to Episode 7.17: Exploration

The amanita wine was nothing like what she used to have on a near-daily basis at Al’s Bar, living the constantly intoxicated life of a relations technician. It was sweet, and strong, and tasted like what summer should have felt like--if summer ever came. Once she got over the initial shock of tasting decent alcohol, Alison had no trouble imbibing glass after glass, to the point where she let her guard down. That was not her first mistake, and certainly not her last, but it was a mistake nonetheless.

Or was it? She wondered, trudging thought the not-quite-so-frozen-but-still-desolate-and-unforgiving wasteland towards Boston. The night she had shared with Theodora Thoreau Roosevelt had been one of the best of her life. Of course, it could just be the wine, sweetening her hazy memories. Simon was there too, of course, as was Emerson. But it was the thought of Dora’s wild hair and warm hands that kept Alison’s feet moving through the rapidly deepening mud. 

Alison thought she had loved, once. Neal was strong, and caring, and an absolute _idiot_ but he was _her_ idiot, and surely if she wasn’t in love with him then she wasn’t in love with anybody. There was something in his laugh, though, that was a little too harsh, and she never did get over the smell. And when he blundered his way into becoming simultaneously the hero of the Company and the Revolution, surely she should have rejoiced to see his memory honored. So why did she feel like her heart was as frozen as the Outside? And why now, of all times, was it beginning to thaw? 

Surely it had nothing to do with the family she had forged on the lightning rig, or the ones she had abandoned to the ants or to the snow. It was probably just the alcohol. Emotions, and especially the physical manifestations of said emotions, are always easier to deal with when you blame them on alcohol. Flushed face? Alcohol. Watery eyes? Definitely the brandy. An overwhelming desire to kiss this woman you barely know, and that some part of you probably hates but the rest of you can’t get enough of? Alison went ahead and mentally filed that one under “it’s not gay if you’re drunk.” Besides, what did one night of hedonism, possibly her last warm night on earth, mean in the face of the rest of her life? Probably nothing, she decided. Although it certainly didn’t feel like nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this isn't gr8 but im just here to suggest the cool new ship. dora/alison. what do they have in common? neal henderson, and also i love them both. also re-listen to this episode it'll definitely break your heart

**Author's Note:**

> editing? proofreading?? who do you think i am


End file.
